Protest the Wars at home and abroad in New York City on April 9 and San Francisco on April 10

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Dear Peace Activists,

In this email:

Featured Speakers at April 9th UNAC Demonstration (additional speakers in SF on April 10)

HONOR THE LEGACY OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING: MARCH FOR JOBS AND AGAINST WAR ON APRIL 9TH!

Featured Speakers at April 9th UNAC DemonstrationJoin thousands of activists at the United National Antiwar Committee rally on April 9th in New York City. We march to bring an end to all the US occupations and US-supported occupations from Iraq to Afghanistan and Palestine. We march to bring all the troops home NOW. We march in solidarity with the struggle for democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. We march to end the war at home against workers, Muslims, and people of color. We march to bring the war dollars home to meet our needs. We march in solidarity with the Japanese people to end US-backed expansion of nuclear power at home and abroad. The rally will feature key leaders of the antiwar movement from across the United States and around the world. Join them to raise our voices for a new world of peace and justice. See the fantastic list of speakers below as well as all the information you need to build and attend the demonstration. Featured Speakers:Omar BarghoutiAnn WrightVijay PrashadCindy SheehanRamsey ClarkSara FloundersHarvey WassermanSeemi AhmedJoe LombardoMary RichmondHatem AbudayyehMarilyn Levin Howie HawkinsMalik MujahidLisa SavageGeorge GreshamVinie BurrowsJohn SamuelsonAhmed ShawkiPardiss KebriaeiGlen FordSherry WolfCharles BarronNada KhaderJose VasquezStatements from Mumia Abu Jamal, Kevin Cooper, and Lynne Stewart

HONOR THE LEGACY OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING: MARCH FOR JOBS AND AGAINST WAR ON APRIL 9TH!

Today, April 4, 2011, unions and their allies rally all across the country to protest unionbusting and to carry on the example set by our heroic sisters and brothers in Wisconsin. We march today because it’s the anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who gave his life on April 4, 1968 while fighting for the rights of workers in Memphis.

Exactly one year before, on April 4, 1967, Dr. King took a heroic stand by linking the fight for jobs and against racism to the struggle against Washington’s wars abroad.

In his speech on April 4th at Riverside Church, Dr. King said:

“A time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam…

“Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path… Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don’t mix, they say. Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people, they ask?”

In reply he spoke to them of the inseparable nature of the fight for justice at home and abroad.

He linked the failure of domestic antipoverty programs to the huge sums wasted on death and destruction in Vietnam: “I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

He noted that it was the poorest working class youth – especially people of color – who were asked to fight and die out of all proportion to their numbers in the population.

He further noted that the US was not fighting for freedom and justice, but that our government was making war “on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor,” in order to protect “the immense profits of overseas investment.”

He educated his listeners how “individual capitalists of the West [are] investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries.”

And in a line that still has the ring of truth as people are rising up all over North Africa and the Middle East for freedom and justice, he declared: “These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born… We in the West must support these revolutions… Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.”

The workers of Wisconsin, who expressed their admiration for and solidarity with the workers of Egypt, who know that an injury abroad is an injury at home, are following directly in the footsteps of Dr. King. Let’s continue in their path!

HONOR THE LEGACY OF DR. KING BY JOINING THE APRIL 9TH NATIONAL MARCH FOR JOBS AND AGAINST WAR! This march is endorsed by 1199 United Health Care Workers East, Transport Workers Union Local 100, and Teamsters Local 808. Get your local union to endorse and send buses!